Take Me Out to the Ballgame...A Not So Instant Replay

In the absence of our Fearless Leader, who is drowning on the links at the Atlantic City Golf Club for the 28th Annual Ron Jaworski Celebrity Golf Challenge, the underling is filling in with a re-posting of story she wrote for The Daily Bark in 2010.

I walked into my friend’s house the other day and her son the cop, who’s 30-something, was watching television.  We said hello to each other and then he abruptly turned back to the TV.  I took a look-see and he was watching one of my favorite shows, “Pardon the Interruption” on ESPN.

“Uh, gee, is that Michael Wilbon?” I asked.  He slowly turned his head and just kind of stared at me.

“Yes, actually, it is,” he replied.  “I’m surprised you know that,” he said as he turned back to the TV.  The camera switched and I pounced.

“And THAT’S Tony Kornheiser!” I said.  A huge smile spread across his face…along with some shock.

“OK, now I am impressed.  I mean it.  That’s really impressive.”  He continued on to say that he never met a “girl” who knew anything about announcers, sports, etc.   Yeah right, buddy, ‘cause we’re busy reading Cosmo!  I decided to pull out my big gun.

“You know, Mike, I even play Golden Tee.”  A huge smile spread across his face.

“No way!”  It was a classic girl-beats-guy moment until my friend yelled from the other room, “Do you even know what Golden Tee is, Mike?”  There was a brief moment of solidarity as we both looked at each other and rolled our eyes.

“Of course, he does!”  I yelled to her as I shook my head.  I turned back to Mike and he was, once again, staring all glassy, pie-eyed at Kornheiser and Wilbon.  Moment passes by in a flash…

Yeah, so I am a girl.  I love to wear pretty underwear, and prefer dresses and skirts to pants.  I don’t leave the house without makeup…even when going to the beach.  I like to go out with my BFF and get a mani/pedi…right before we head to our new “go-to” place for an Irish Car Bomb, a round of Grey Goose Gimlets, and a go at the Golden Tee machine.  I prefer trivia games, cold beer, and sports bars to mah-jong, wine spritzers, and tapas bars.  I decorated our pool room:  there’s a Fenway sign; a photo of my son’s running the bases at Nationals’ Park; a photo of Wrigley Stadium I took while on a road trip with my college roommate; and about half a dozen books on baseball and stadiums.  On my bucket list:  visit the stadiums of my favorite teams and get Chase Utley to autograph one of my photographs.

Here’s the deal:  I love sports.  I love the competition.  I love the beauty of the movement; the squeak of the sneakers as my Villanova Wildcats run up and down the court; the roar of the crowd when the Eagles win and the equally loud “Boos” when our QB’s pass doesn’t complete.  I love watching the puck race over the ice and boy, oh, boy, I absolutely LOVE when the gloves go down and the Flyers fight.  The form of a pitcher throwing a ball is a thing of beauty and I am fascinated by the stance of any player at bat…I can spend an entire game photographing the pitchers and batters and then hours examining them…and I do.

Cole Hamels on the mound against the Washington Nationals 8/1/10

Stats?  Eh, yeah…no…not so much.

Sure, I love the trivia part:

Cal Ripkin, Jr. tied Lou Gehrig’s home run record one night and his consecutive game record the next.  That’s cool.

Mike Schmidt once hit a baseball off a speaker hanging over 100 feet above the field and 200 feet from home plate at the Astrodome.  Can you say HOMERUN???

Philly-born, Roy Campanella’s first major league game was also the last game ever played at the Brooklyn Dodger’s Ebbets Field.  See, to me, that’s synchronicity.

In the 1972 season, the Phillies only won 59 games, 27 of which were won for the Phils by Steve Carlton.  Where was the rest of the team that year?

In 1975 I started high school and used to watch a really cute boy play baseball, hoping he’d notice me.  He didn’t.  He went on to play with the LA Dodgers.  Who is he?  Angels manager, Mike Scioscia.  Now I watch him on TV.

January 11, 1981:  In near-Artic temperatures, my beloved Eagles beat the Dallas Cowboys 20-7 to win the NFC Championship game.  I was there and still have my ticket stub.  It was about 5 above zero, but you wouldn’t know it at the Vet!  There were guys behind us without their shirts on…I think they were the founders of “The 700 Level Club.”

Some of my all-time favorite movies are “The Natural,” “The Greatest Game Ever Played,” and “Invincible.”  Why?  Because they’re all about the little guy making it against all the odds.

Ryan Howard at bat against the Washington Nationals 4/12/11

Stats just don’t do it for me.  I couldn’t care less what Ryan Howard’s at-bat stats are (.275).  I just like to watch him hit that ball.  He is a beast at the plate and when I watch him swing, I can see the power coming off him from his head all the way to his feet.  I love photographing that.

It doesn’t matter to me if Chase Utley drops the ball (OK, well, yeah, it really does) as long as I get to watch him run, slide, whatever…he’s so damned hot to watch!

When I watch the Phils play (sadly, only from Nationals Stadium these days), I’m not watching for errors.  I’m watching form.  I’m watching for speed.  Sure, I want to know why a play fails, but I actually like watching HOW it fails more than I want to know why.

Maybe it’s another guy-girl thing.  Maybe I am a hopeless romantic and don’t even know it?  I think my best date would be sitting in a REALLY great sports bar with a guy who is willing to listen to me wax poetic on what I love about a particular sport or team AND who then – genuinely and in a fun way - helps me understand the stats, who’s a better player and why.

Here's a news flash guys:  there are lots of girls out there like me.  We love sports as much as you do...so don't count us out or roll your eyes, or even act surprised when we express an interest or show even a cursory knowledge of a sport.  Instead, embrace it and us...then take us out to the ballgame!!! 

Originally posted 6/27/2010 on The Daily Bark, owned by Bark Tees.  Visit them at www.barktees.com

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The Morning After...No Bridge Jumping Necessary!

I'm hoping the line to jump from the Ben Franklin Bridge was shorter last night than it has been in past years.

Flyers  fans have a reason for hope.  The future is actually bright, as opposed to feeling like "this was our last chance."

Look, I admit it:  I'm not the greatest Flyers fan of all time.  I can't tell you the juniors team that Eric Wellwood played for or other hard core facts about the squad. 

The only time I watch regular season games is when the bar shows them as I play Golden Tee Golf.

My ankles snap, crackle, and pop loudly each year as I jump back on the bandwagon right around playoff time like many other Philadelphia sports fans do.  But, I am a loyal, returning fan every single year.

In the past, I always felt like the Flyers’ brain trust had patch-worked rosters that were riddled with grizzly veterans who were trying to squeeze the last bit of hockey life out of their mangled and dilapidated bodies.  And the Flyers admittedly have been very successful at this strategy in the past, but it never seemed to put the team over the top.

That's why last off-season felt very different.  The Flyers brass made earth shattering trades sending away some of the team’s top players while acquiring youthful hope in the bodies of unproven potential stars.  They traded away names I actually KNEW for lots of guys I’d never heard of.

For the most part, that formula was a huge success.

If you can remember passed the orange-colored glasses that were worn the last few weeks, many Flyers hopefuls wondered out loud where the scoring was going to come from and labeled this a "rebuilding year.”

And then a funny thing happened....the team came together and played very well.  Well enough to oust Cup favorites Pittsburgh and gave hope to all of Philadelphia that maybe this WAS our year!?

The good news is that the names and ages of the team include guys like Giroux (28), Couterier (19), Read (25), Wellwood (22), Van Riemsdyk (23), Schenn (20) Simmonds (23), Voracek (22), and the list goes on.  Add to that a few vets that have gas in the tank (ie...Briere, Hartnell, etc.) and you have a pretty good nucleus for success over the next few years.

Obvious subtractions need to be made.  Jaromir Jagr has had a great career and may have one or two years left, but not here.  He just seems like he's out of joint with everybody else on the ice.  Jagr just doesn't fit.

Life without Pronger is probably inevitable.  The defense unit will need to learn from the Devils series and find better ways to deliver the puck up the ice.  Maybe another big name acquisition for the blue line would be a good idea?

And then there is Bryz.  Like him or hate him, he's your Flyers goalie for the next three or four years, minimum.  Too much money has been sunk into the dude.

My guess is that we'll all have to live with our beloved goaltender's peaks and valleys, and I'm ok with that.  Everybody has good days and bad.  Hopefully as he continues to mesh with all of his teammates over the next couple years he'll weed out more of those "valleys" to the point where they just don't happen.

The direction is certainly a positive one.  There are certainly issues that need to be figured out, but overall, things are looking pretty good at Flyerpalooza.

How long until training camp starts?  Ehhhh...just call me next April!
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